"Airlines are optimistic they can resume normal operations just a few days after the government lifts its order to cut some flights at 40 busy airports, but it's not clear how soon that will happen even though the federal shutdown is over. The Federal Aviation Administration did announce Wednesday night that airlines won't have to cut more than 6% of flights at those airports because air traffic controller staffing has improved significantly in the last few days."
"A number of air traffic controllers missed work while they were going without pay during the shutdown, and the spike in understaffing at airport towers and regional control centers prompted the flight cut order due to concerns about safety. The existing shortage of several thousand controllers is so bad that even a small number of absences in some locations caused problems."
"The airlines say they will be ready and expect that normal operations will resume within three or four days after the order is lifted. Some experts have suggested that problems might linger longer than that and could affect Thanksgiving travel, so it is difficult to predict whether the airlines will be able to recover from this as quickly as they do after a major snowstorm disrupts their operations and leaves planes and crews out of position."
Airlines expressed optimism about resuming normal operations within three to four days after the government lifts an order limiting flights at 40 busy airports. The FAA said airlines will not have to cut more than 6% of flights at those airports because air traffic controller staffing improved in the last few days. Many controllers missed work while unpaid during the shutdown, producing spikes in understaffing at towers and regional centers and prompting the flight-cut order over safety concerns. The existing shortage of several thousand controllers meant small absences caused problems; about 1,000 flights were canceled by late Thursday morning.
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]